Last week into Lunar New Year weekend, which feels like longer ago now, my other half took me on a much-anticipated 4-day trip to Iceland. We had been once before, almost 10 years ago, and hoped that this time we would get to see the Northern Lights. It wasn’t in the stars for us this time either (although the stars themselves were abundantly visible in the night sky above Þingvellir), but what we did get to see was the volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, which started about half an hour before our plane landed on Thursday morning (February 8).

The fissure spanned approximately 3 km (2 miles) and the lava is reported to have spewed up to 80 meters (260 feet) high. This is the third eruption since December 2023, and roads and pipelines were damaged, resulting in people in the surrounding towns having to go without power and hot water during a time of subfreezing temperatures. The eruption subsided by Friday. As of Sunday (February 11), Keflavík Airport still did not have hot water.

We had booked tickets to the Blue Lagoon, but it closed due to the eruption, so we (and many other tourists) changed plans and went to Sky Lagoon instead. Sky Lagoon is smaller but amazing in its own right, and more scenic overall. The rocks had mosses growing in the crevices and toppings of snow. Frost formed in our hair, which was exposed to the subfreezing air.

That evening, after a wonderful dinner, we went to a speakeasy called Amma Don, named for the grandmother of the owner of this and the associated Michelin-starred restaurant, Óx. The two are connected by a door that looks like a bookshelf, although while guests from the restaurant were allowed to come through to use the facilities, guests from the bar were not allowed to go see the restaurant. I didn’t mind, though, as I was so enthralled by the drinks menu featuring cocktails with such ingredients as vetiver, geranium, and “Grandma’s perfume”!

This last one piqued my curiosity and I was told that it was in the style of a Chanel perfume from the 1930s, with notes of rose and leather. The accord had been recreated from the lingering scent of this perfume on Grandma’s clothes from around the 1990s. I had a sip of the cocktail, Clover Club, which was built on gin and also contained Chambord raspberry liqueur, and found it very rosy, but not leathery.

Was it made with rosewater? I asked. And what was used for the leather effect?

The mixologist replied that it was made with food-grade rose absolute, and that the leather note was labdanum absolute! He let us smell the labdanum, which was quite animalic even at a weak dilution. I asked to add a few more drops to the drink, which definitely introduced a palpably funky edge to it. (Objectively, it tasted better before.)

We chatted a bit about perfume, each excited to chance upon someone else who knew the ingredients at a similar level, and I ordered Ode to Geranium as my next drink.

Now, this was leathery! The scotch was overpowering in its animal overtone, although I could still perceive the geranium floralcy.

Perfumed cocktails at their best.

Reykjavík is a small city, and the main downtown area is easy to explore on foot in about a day. Most shops showcase Icelandic designers and specialties, such as wool sweaters, lava rocks, and some of the most robust outdoors winter gear you can find.

One of the many highlights of the trip was, of course, a visit to Fischersund perfumery, located on an eponymous side street. Founded by Jónsi, the lead singer of Sigur Rós and self-taught perfumer, and his siblings, the brand is housed in a boutique that serves as a multisensory art gallery.

This 19th-century building is set up to highlight fragrant raw materials in multiple forms, from tinctures to resin encasings to botanical walls to moving pictures on screens.

Haunting, atmospheric music and giant wall panels of moss help to set the scene—I immediately felt calm and simultaneously excited to spend some time discovering new perfumes and all the details of the displays that had been so carefully thought out.

The hospitality was exceptional as well—we were offered their homemade schnapps decanted from a beautiful glass flask into small crystal tulip glasses. It’s made from a blend of herbs used to prepare traditional remedies for sore throats, and unsweetened except for perhaps a tiny drop of honey or agave syrup. Delicious and lightly floral, the blend is also sold as tea, which according to the website contains birch, creeping thyme, angelica, sweet cicely, red clover and arctic root—handpicked from remote parts of Iceland.

Most of the fragrances come in multiple formulations—perfume spray, solid perfume, candle, incense sticks, incense cones… each perfume has an accompanying poem and the bottle comes wrapped in a specially designed bandanna featuring the poem and botanical illustrations.

No. 23 is their first and best-selling fragrance; fresh, dry, and smoky, it unfurls into a dark leather and ambergris base. Stated notes are “Anis seed, black pepper, tobacco seeds and Icelandic Sitka spruce.” To my nose, it was one of their most complex scents, and this impression was more than reinforced by their exhibition dedicated to the “deconstruction” of No. 23. Down the uneven stone steps we go, into the basement, for another eye- and nose-opening experience!

When I smelled the top and heart notes from the bell jars, I felt that each could be a finished perfume on its own. In the base notes, the ambergris was very prominent, followed by leather.

No. 8 is one that I’d read was safe to buy unsniffed, and after smelling it, I don’t disagree. It’s very lemony, tinged with rhubarb against a backdrop of pine, made slightly odd with a hint of motor oil. It felt like a top-note fragrance, light and uplifting, but not as long-lasting as some of the others.

No. 54 is on the darker side, and I think the brand’s description gives the best sense of how it smells:

Fresh coat of varnish on a wooden shed. Uprooted moss, wet dirt and vetiver roots. Burnt car tires on hot asphalt and dry patchouli. Heavy slow-drying oil painting. Icelandic alpine fir, footsteps in frozen grass and salt liquorice. Dirty leather, animalistic musk and ammonia.

These 3 perfumes are sold in several other stores in Reykjavík as well as the airport. My favorite turned out to be No. 101, which I bought at the boutique and later noticed wasn’t sold elsewhere. This is meant to be the fragrance of gardens during the short summers in the downtown area encompassed by the postcode 101—grassy, woody, drying down to what smelled like fig to me, even though it’s not listed. No. 101 even has its own dedicated song, Bakgarðar, available on vinyl.

Finally, the perfumery features a Scent Bar, which is a fancy way to let customers assemble their own discovery kit. You pick 3 vials and their “matching scent poems,” place them in a tin, and stamp the Fischersund key-shaped logo onto the lid.

The brand appears in other stores with its aesthetic maintained, for example here in the sleek gift shop Rammagerðin:

Fischersund has also created 2 fragrances in collaboration with Icelandic outerwear brand 66°North: Útilykt, the scent of Icelandic air, also sold as a tea blend very similar to the one in the boutique; and Jöklalykt, a limited-edition perfume inspired by glaciers. Both capture well the sentiment of the icy, earthy terrain.

Another notable Icelandic perfume brand is Andrea Maack—although without a standalone boutique, the perfumes are sold in various stores and the airport. They have a nice variety, which I felt reflected a range of styles that are popular in mainstream perfumery. I was drawn to Soft Tension, a very cocooning, floral musk with hints of freesia, mate, cedarwood, and moss, and carried the blotter in my backpack for the duration of the trip.

Reykjavík is a good city for perfumery—many clothing stores stocked larger niche brands including Mad et Len, D.S. & Durga, and Maison Matine, to name a few. Also, practically every lifestyle shop has its own souvenir candles and reed diffusers… of course, I couldn’t resist a candle called Reykjavík by Amsterdam-based brand WIJCK! It boasts notes of rhubarb, violet, and patchouli, but it smells mostly citrusy to me…

On our last day, we wandered across the Reykjavík Art Museum’s Hafnarhús location (by the old harbor) and although we didn’t have time to see the museum itself, we browsed the gift shop and found that they also sold perfumes:

If you visit Iceland, I highly recommend taking a tour of some of the most spectacular landmarks. We took the Golden Circle tour by bus and visited Geysir, Gullfoss (“Golden Falls”), and Þingvellir National Park. The snow and ice gave these rugged landscapes a special kind of beauty.

As we left Gullfoss, we encountered a snow flurry, which limited visibility on the road. Suddenly, a group of Icelandic horses (not ponies!) started running synchronously along the direction of our bus!

Writing this post has helped me relive our brief but memorable trip to the Land of Fire and Ice, and I shall be reminiscing even more through my perfume souvenirs, the enjoyment of which I hope to share with you soon.